One-state solution

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Hamas election poster in Ramallah , calling for a one-state solution: “Palsetine [sic!] From Sea to Rever [sic!]” (Translated: Palestine from the (Mediterranean) Sea to the (Jordan) River)

Various concepts for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are referred to as a one-state solution . Accordingly, a single state is to be formed from Israel, the West Bank and - depending on the concept - the Gaza Strip . In addition, it was historically discussed as a possibility for the regular coexistence of Jews and Arabs at the time of the British Mandate Palestine .

overview

The feasibility of a two-state solution in the former mandate of Palestine is increasingly being questioned. Alternative models for solving the Middle East conflict are therefore being proposed by the Israeli and Palestinian sides . These include one-state models of various types. There are concepts for a one-state solution that provide for Jewish dominance, proposals for a binational state, and models for a confederation of two independent states.

In a binational solution, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Jews and Palestinians would keep their legal and ethnic identities on an equal footing. Offices would be divided between the two populations in a proportional system . In contrast to this is the principle of one person - one vote , which is being promoted primarily by the political left . Virginia Tilley wrote in 2005 that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip made a division into two states impossible and, despite the formidable obstacles, advocates a one-state solution.

According to Sergio DellaPergola, a total of 5,698,500 Arabs and 6,103,200 Jewish Israelis live in Israel and Palestine.

Historical development

Under the British mandate

There have been proposals for a joint Jewish-Arab state in Palestine since the 1920s. Between 1925 and 1933 the organization Brit Schalom (“Friedensbund”) existed, founded by Martin Buber , Robert Weltsch and Judah Magnes , which campaigned for the Jewish-Arab dialogue and advocated a “binational state in which the equal rights of both peoples that should shape the fate of the country, regardless of the numerical conditions ”(from the first publication Our Aspirations , 1927). It had a few hundred members, mostly intellectuals from European countries. The conception of binationalism was also adopted by socialist and pacifist Zionist groups such as Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam , Kedmah Mizracha , Ichud and the League for Jewish-Arab Rapprochement .

Before 1947, many leading Jewish intellectuals believed that a binational state could be formed on the basis of partnership. One of the most prominent early exponents of this idea was the well-known religious philosopher Martin Buber . In 1947 he wrote: “We describe our program as that of a binational state; H. we intend a social structure based on two peoples living together [...] This is what we need, not a 'Jewish state'; for a nation-state in a vast, hostile environment could mean deliberate national suicide. ”When the State of Israel gained independence in 1948, however, Buber accepted it as a positive result of Zionism.

Even Hannah Arendt had the vision of a binational Palestine , a Federation that perhaps other countries in the Middle East could include. In May 1948 she wrote in an article in the magazine Commentary : “A federal state could ultimately be the natural starting point for a possible later larger federal structure in the Middle East and the Mediterranean […] The real goal of the Jews in Palestine is to build up a Jewish home. This goal must never be sacrificed to the pseudo-sovereignty of a Jewish state. ”Arendt was increasingly critical of Zionism, but also emphasized that Israel was necessary as a place of retreat and because of ineradicable anti-Semitism .

In the 1947 report of the UN Special Committee on Palestine, three solutions to the Palestine conflict were proposed. The third solution envisaged a unified democratic state in the mandate of Palestine . Another British and American proposal, the Morrison-Grady Plan, presented by Herbert Morrison and Henry F. Grady in 1946, proposed a federal state under British trusteeship. None of these solutions could achieve a majority in the UN General Assembly.

After the two-state solution gained international support in accordance with the UN partition plan for Palestine, internal Jewish resistance to the concept of a Jewish state largely disappeared. During this change of opinion, Hannah Arendt noted a sudden suppression of dissenting opinions within the Zionist movement. After 1947 the official Zionist line was to support a "Jewish state".

1948 to 1967

The establishment of Israel in May 1948 triggered various refugee and migration movements: Large parts of the Arab population of the mandate area left their settlement areas, especially after calls from the Arab groups and warring parties, or were expelled and fled to neighboring countries (from the Arab side often as Nakba (catastrophe) designated). The Jewish population in Arab or Muslim countries, in turn, was more or less systematically in the years from these distributed . Many of them settled in the newly created Jewish state. Following the concept of a Jewish homeland or a Jewish state, all subsequent Israeli governments have promoted the Aliyah , the immigration of Jews to Israel.

Due to the post-war order that emerged after the Israeli War of Independence , a binational solution was largely irrelevant. In 1948 (Trans) Jordan occupied the West Bank and finally annexed it. In turn, Egypt took the Gaza Strip under its administration, but without granting the local Arab population civil rights (these Arabs remained stateless). The Arabs who emigrated or fled to other Arab states were neither integrated into their host countries, nor were they given citizenship. Rather, they were settled in refugee camps. In contrast, Israel, despite its understanding as a Jewish state, granted the Arabs remaining on its territory equal civil rights, so that they have since enjoyed greater political freedoms than the Arabs in all other Arab states. Arab parties are also represented in the Knesset .

The Arab national movement generally rejected a binational solution because it made little hope of it; their leadership did not want to see the Arabs as a minority in a country they saw as their own.

1967 to 1991

After Israel occupied the Egyptian Gaza Strip and the West Bank annexed by Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War , a situation arose in which interest in the one-state solution reawakened.

Immediately after the initial euphoria about the victory over the neighboring states, foreign and Israeli observers (e.g. Yeschajahu Leibowitz ) soon noticed that the new areas could pose a longer-term problem. Leibowitz opposed the idea of ​​annexing the newly acquired territories throughout his life.

The majority of Israelis feared that such an annexation, combined with the granting of Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians, would jeopardize the Jewish majority in Israel, and for other reasons a two-state solution seemed more effective. The international community saw the return of the occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state as a fair possible solution to the Middle East conflict . Although the Palestinians and neighboring Arab states initially did not react positively, the idea of ​​a two-state solution was institutionalized as the only viable option due to diplomatic pressure from the USA, the Soviet Union, European countries and the United Nations.

Initially there was a negative attitude in Arab circles, but this slowly weakened and was replaced by an almost dogmatic advocacy of the two-state solution. In the meantime, however, this has been threatened by the controversial Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, which created facts while the fate of the Palestinians was kept open.

Because of this dilemma, the idea of ​​a binational state was revived by some foreign supporters of Israel, such as the Jewish-American journalist IF Stone . There was little support for this in Israel and elsewhere, and as early as 1973 the undesirable prospect of a binational solution was used by prominent left-wing politicians in Israel as an argument for abandoning the occupied territories soon.

The result of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 led the Palestinian ruling class to begin rethinking towards a two-state solution. This war made it clear that because of Israel's military strength, a military victory of the Arabs over Israel is not to be expected. The first significant Palestinians have shown interest in a two-state solution since the mid-1970s (in particular Said Hammami , the PLO representative in London). The Palestinian leadership finally took up the concept at the 1982 Arab summit in Fez, Morocco . Nevertheless, Yasser Arafat only recognized Israel - initially only indirectly - from 1988 (speech to the UN General Assembly on December 13, 1988). In 1989 Arafat declared the 1964 PLO charter, which called for the destruction of the State of Israel, to be invalid. The conclusion of this development was finally the letter from Arafat (as PLO chairman) of September 9, 1993 to the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin : “The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. [The PLO] renounces terror and any other kind of violence ” . In return, Rabin recognized “the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people” .

Binationalism also had supporters in this period. Some of the right-wing Israelis associated with the settler movement were willing to support a binational state as long as it followed Zionist guidelines. Members of Menachem Begin's Likud government were ready to support this idea in the late 1970s if it had secured formal Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

1991 until today

The Madrid Conference (1991), the Oslo Agreement (1993), the Interim Agreement (1995), the Hebron Protocol (1997), the Wye Agreement (1998), and the Roadmap (2002) are based on the two-state solution, albeit one opposed by various groups on the Palestinian side, including Hamas , Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine . The Oslo Agreement was never fully adopted and implemented by either side. After the second intifada , the two-state solution lost support in the eyes of some observers.

For some years now, interest in the one-state solution has increased, especially among US intellectuals. So published Tony Judt , a historian at the New York University , in 2003, the positive and negative acclaimed article "Israel: The Alternative" at the influential New York Review of Books . In it he described the two-state solution as hopeless and fundamentally impracticable. Some left-wing journalists in Israel, such as Haim Hanegbi and Daniel Gavron , are also calling on the public to acknowledge the "facts" and accept a binational solution.

In 1999, noted Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said wrote :

“[...] after 50 years of Israeli history, classical Zionism has not found a solution for the existence of the Palestinians. So I see no other option but to start talking about sharing the land that brought us together, in a truly democratic way, with equal rights for all citizens. "

"Time is running out for a two-state solution," British Guardian quoted Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as saying in an interview in 2004. Many political activists, such as Omar Barghouti , founder of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions , predicted that Arafat's death would mark the end of the Oslo Agreement and the two-state solution .

The Gaza War 2008–2009 and the results of the Israeli parliamentary elections in 2009, in which the peace camp suffered a significant defeat, have further diminished the chances for a two-state solution, although it continues to be favored by politicians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview with the daily Ha'aretz in 2007 that, without a two-state solution, Israel would face “a fight for equal suffrage, South African style”, which would be “the end of Israel”. Similarly, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said in 2004 that if Israel did not conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinians, the Palestinians would demand a binational state.

On November 29, 2007, on the 60th anniversary of the UN resolution to partition Palestine, a number of prominent pro-Palestinian scholars and activists signed the “One-State Declaration” for a “democratic solution, a just and therefore lasting peace in a unitary state ". The declaration called for "the widest possible discussion, investigation and action to promote and bring about a unified democratic solution."

Proponents from the pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist spectrum

These authors from the pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist spectrum cite the “constant expansion of the Jewish settlements”, particularly in the West Bank, as a compelling reason for the decreasing feasibility of the two-state solution. You are committed to a secular and democratic state that should enable the continued existence of the Jewish population and culture in the region. However, this alternative would permanently undermine the “dream” of “Jewish domination”.

It is also often claimed that a two-state solution has empirically proven to be unrealistic.

Supporters on the Israeli side

In 2010, the former Foreign Minister Moshe Arens propagated the idea of ​​a single state west of the Jordan in which the Palestinians would be granted full citizenship. The idea of ​​a Greater Israel has become serious in the Likud party , with some members openly calling for a one-state solution in the sense of annexing the West Bank. The so-called demographic threat should not be feared. Israel would not lose its Jewish majority if it annexed the West Bank and granted citizenship to the Arabs living there. According to Zehut member Albert Levy, the one-state solution is the only viable option for peace. The demographic statistics presented by the PA were highly inflated and Israel would not be outnumbered by the Palestinians in the West Bank. Zehut chairman Moshe Feiglin expressed his support for the one-state solution by claiming that over 90% of the Palestinians in Gaza and 65% in the West Bank wanted to emigrate, allowing Israel to maintain a Jewish majority between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

criticism

The one-state solution has been criticized by both Israelis and Palestinians for a number of reasons:

  • Critics believe that a one-state solution would destroy the right of both societies to self-determination. There are two groups within this school of thought:
  1. Israeli Jews who fear merging with a population that belongs to a different culture that has no democratic and constitutional tradition. It is feared that the existing equal rights for all Israeli citizens would be jeopardized.
  2. Zionist Israeli Jews who fear a one-state solution would undermine Israel's status as the home of the Jewish people.
  • Some believe that a one-state solution would not work, just as it did not work or did not work in other multi-ethnic countries ( Czechoslovakia , Yugoslavia , Lebanon ). In addition, there was already a lot of violence between the two ethnic groups in the 1920s and 1930s, and as early as 1937 the Peel Commission recommended division as the only way to end the violence.
  • Supporters of the one-state solution are in the minority both among the Jewish population and among the Arab population.

Attitude of the population

An opinion poll by Near East Consulting (NEC) with several options found in November 2007 that the one-state solution was the least popular solution to the conflict with less than 15% approval. Around half of the Palestinians supported an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel ( two-state solution ) and around 30% demand “a Palestinian state in all of historical Palestine”. In another survey by the NEC in February 2007, however, it was found that 70% of the Palestinians surveyed supported the one-state solution if they were either for or against “a one-state solution in the historic Palestinian state, with equal rights and obligations for Muslims, Christians and Jews ”.

A 2013 survey found that 63% of Israelis and 69% of Palestinians oppose the one-state solution.

Reasons for rejection

On the Israeli side - also with a view to the demographic trend - it is mainly pointed out that Jews would again constitute a minority in such a binational state. This is seen as a threat to Israel's right to exist , which has been specifically designed as a state for the Jews since the dawn of the Zionist movement.

Among the Palestinians, the Islamists in particular are opponents of this solution, as it would run counter to the goal of an Islamic state, as well as some Arab nationalists who see the one-state solution as opposed to pan-Arabism .

See also

Web links

For the one-state solution

Criticism of the one-state solution

literature

  • Judah Leon Magnes , Agudat Iḥud, M. Reiner, Herbert Samuel, Ernst Simon , M. Smilansky: Palestine - Divided or United? The Case for a Bi-National Palestine before the United Nations. Ihud 1947. Reprint: Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1983, ISBN 0-8371-2617-7 .
  • Alan Dershowitz : The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved. Wiley & Sons, Hoboken 2005.
  • Susan Lee Hattis: The Binational Idea in Palestine during Mandatory Times. Shikmona, Haifa 1970.
  • Fifteen Years' Successful Conquest Has Wounded Israel's Soul. In: Washington Post. June 6, 1982.
  • A. Sofer: Demography in the Land of Israel in the Year 2000. Haifa University, 1987.
  • Paul R. Mendes-Flohr : A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs. Smith, Gloucester, Mass. 1994.
  • Ruth Gavison : Jewish and Democratic? A Rejoinder to the "Ethnic Democracy" Debate. In: Israel Studies. March 31, 1999.
  • Dan Leon: Binationalism: A Bridge over the Chasm. In: Palestine-Israel Journal. July 31, 1999.
  • Virginia Tilley: The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock. University of Michigan Press, 2005.
  • Edward Said : The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After. Granta Books, London 2000.

Klaus Hofmann, “Israel / Palestine. The impossibility of the two-state solution, “Jüdische Zeitung 90, August 2013, pp. 14–15.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Muriel Asseburg, Jan Busse: The end of the two-state regulation? Alternatives and priorities for the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Science and Politics Foundation, April 2016, accessed on January 14, 2020 .
  2. ^ Virginia Tilley: The One-State Solution . University of Michigan Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-472-03449-9 .
  3. ↑ Right-wing annexation drive fueled by false demographics, experts say . In: Times of Israel . 5th January 2015.
  4. ↑ Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy: In Confidence. Correspondence 1949–1975 . Munich 1997, p. 365 f. (Oct 1969)
  5. ↑ Gaza Strip: Between Occupation, Withdrawal, and Independence. on: stern.de , November 29, 2004.
  6. ↑ a b Qantara : Sunni Palestinians in Lebanon. Victims of Peace ( Memento from August 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), 2010
  7. ^ Freedom House: Middle East. Freedom House, October 10, 2013, accessed October 10, 2013 . : 21 states were considered. Six of them (Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco) were classified as “partly free democracies”, and Israel (excluding the occupied areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip) as the only “free democracies”.
  8. ↑ Naomi Bubis: Where is the Israel of the new millennium drifting? Israel between theocracy and democracy. In: Dietmar Herz, Christian Jetzlsperger, Kai Ahlborn (eds.): The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 235ff.
  9. ^ Ayoob, Mohammed. The Middle East in world politics. 1981, page 90.
  10. ↑ Cesarani, David. The Jewish chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841-1991. 1994, page 230.
  11. ^ Tessler, Mark A. (1994): A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , p. 718.
  12. ↑ Le Monde diplomatique of October 14, 2011, The Promised State, [1] ; accessed on September 7, 2017
  13. ^ The Palestinian National Charter of July 17, 1968 ; see. especially Articles 9, 10, 15
  14. ↑ WDR, September 9, 1993 - PLO recognizes Israel's right to exist, [2] ; accessed on September 7, 2017
  15. ↑ Tony Judt: "Israel: The Alternative"
  16. ^ Edward Said , "Truth and Reconciliation," Al-Ahram Weekly , Jan. 14, 1999
  17. ↑ NY Times, March 16, 2017
  18. ↑ Olmert to Haaretz: Two-state solution, or Israel is done for , Haaretz , November 29, 2007.
  19. ↑ Palestinian PM's 'one state' call , BBC News , Jan. 9, 2004
  20. ^ Constance Hilliard Does Israel Have A Future? The Case for the One-State Solution , Washington, DC 2009, ISBN 978-1-59797-234-5 , pp. 129-132
  21. ^ "One Country": A new book from EI cofounder Ali Abunimah ( Memento of October 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), The Electronic Intifada. Retrieved December 19, 2010
  22. ↑ Michael Tarazi: Two Peoples, One State , New York Times, October 4, 2004
  23. ^ Post-apartheid: One state , From Occupied Palestine, September 5, 2003
  24. ^ One state awakening ( memento from March 7, 2008 in the web archive archive.today ), ZNet, December 16, 2003
  25. ^ The Right of Return. Two-State Solution Sells Palestine Short , CounterPunch, January 31 - February 1, 2004
  26. ^ Forget the two-state solution. Israelis and Palestinians must share the land. Equally. , LA Times , May 11, 2008
  27. ^ Judith Butler: Jews and the Bi-National Vision . In: Logos . Winter 2004. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
  28. ↑ Muammar Qadaffi: The One-State Solution . In: The New York Times , January 21, 2009. Retrieved March 14, 2011. 
  29. ↑ One-state solution gains supporters , arab news, December 24, 2008
  30. ↑ George Bisharat: Israel and Palestine: A true one-state solution . Washington Post . September 3, 2010. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
  31. ^ Carlo Strenger: Strenger than Fiction / Israel should consider a one-state solution . In: Haaretz , June 18, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2014. 
  32. ^ Raphael Ahren: The newly confident Israeli proponents of a one-state solution . In: The Times of Israel , July 16, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2014. 
  33. ↑ Knesset MK hopeful advocates for one-state solution. In: The Jerusalem Post. November 21, 2018, accessed November 8, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Jacob Magid: Feiglin says his party 'similar' to extremist Otzma Yehudit on Palestinian issue. In: The Times of Israel. March 24, 2019, accessed November 9, 2019 .
  35. ^ Freedom House: Middle East. Freedom House, October 10, 2013, accessed October 10, 2013 . : 21 states were considered. Six of them (Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco) were classified as “partly free democracies”, and Israel (excluding the occupied areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip) as the only “free democracies”.
  36. ↑ Naomi Bubis: Where is the Israel of the new millennium drifting? Israel between theocracy and democracy. In: Dietmar Herz, Christian Jetzlsperger, Kai Ahlborn (eds.): The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 235ff.
  37. ^ One-state solution a pipedream. Despite peace process failure, two-state solution still the only viable answer , Ynetnews , November 19, 2006
  38. ^ Partition of Palestine , The Guardian . July 8, 1937. Retrieved December 23, 2010. 
  39. ↑ Near East Consulting November 2007 . Retrieved December 19, 2010
  40. ^ Near East Consulting February 2007 . Retrieved December 19, 2010
  41. ↑ Survey: Israelis and Palestinians for Two-State Solution , Kurier, July 3, 2013.